I haven't been knitting long myself so I don't have any advice of my own but would love to get tips on this.
I knit continental and I find my right arm and fingers get tired after about 15 mins of knitting.I mostly knit on circular needles.
I do tend to crochet/knit tightly but am trying to work on it.
I taught myself to knit and I think I taught myself the wrong way. I insert my needle in the back loop on the needle from right to left.
Just wondering if these facts play a part in tiredness.

Hi! I came across this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuRLF...eature=related in an earlier post in this thread and found it helpful. I knit continental, learned crochet first, and also have had problems with my hands getting tired. I'm currently working with sock yarn and haven't tried holding the yarn as she does in the video with worsted weight, but it is much easier for me to maintain even tension with the sock yarn holding it as in the video.

So I think I'm obligated now to share a tip or 2.

Don't be afraid to try something new or different. You might find you like it. I have, more than once.

When knitting in the round I wrap the first and last stitches on the needle backwards to twist the stitch, it helps prevent laddering for me. I make sure I knit into the back leg when I come back to it, wrapping the yarn backwards to twist the new stitch.

The Following User Says Thank You to GrumpyGramma For This Useful Post:

Hey Grumpy - I was taught to knit "English style" by my mother, many years ago, but just this week, was shown the continental way by a man who's a member of the Sutherland Shire Spinners and Weavers (a group I'm Secretary of). It's a great way of knitting really and I'm amazed why more people don't adopt it. I'm certainly going to try and reprogram my brain.

I can knit both ways and do so for fair isle and ribbing, but my go to, comfortable method is English. It's faster for me, too. Contrary to popular opinion continental isn't always faster. It's worth knowing both methods though IMO.

__________________
Jan

When asking questions ALWAYS post the name and a link for the pattern if you have it.

Hey Grumpy - I was taught to knit "English style" by my mother, many years ago, but just this week, was shown the continental way by a man who's a member of the Sutherland Shire Spinners and Weavers (a group I'm Secretary of). It's a great way of knitting really and I'm amazed why more people don't adopt it. I'm certainly going to try and reprogram my brain.

Learning something new is so cool and it sounds like you had a great teacher. I don't have a problem purling Continental, haven't got the hang of it English. Someone here knits Eastern European (?) and others knit Portuguese style. I want to try both at some point. I have a great deal of respect for those who knit English comfortably and well. For me, it is just really hard, I think because I crocheted for 20+ years before knitting and I tried it more like crochet before I found out there is a real way to knit like that. It's great you have two knitting styles now. Even if you only ever do ribbing in Continental, it'll be handy for that, and if you get into 2 color knitting you can use it there. As for purling, there is a link somewhere in here that I checked out and looked at how she holds the yarn; I reposted the link. I don't do the rest as she does in the video but I find holding the yarn like that works better for me than anything else I've tried and makes purling easier. So....try different ways of holding your yarn and find what's comfortable for now and try something else later on, you might like it better then.

I use magic loop for my toe-up socks, but I get tired of moving the marker (the height of laziness, right?). I can use the tails to tell where I am, but as the sock gets longer, I'll get tired of turning the toe inside out to see where the sock #1 tail is (especially after I stuff the ball of yarn into the toe). So I used a darning needle and pulled that first tail through to the right side, about an inch up the side of the toe. That inch on the WS will make it easy to grab the tail and pull it back through to the WS when the socks are finished and I want to weave in any tails. Here are a couple of pics in case it's hard to visualize. (The yarn is curly because it's recycled from a thrift-store sweater.)

Oh, yeah, metal pins can be bad. I have some of those coiless pin stitch markers. When I stop in at JoAnn Fabrics and have coupons, I hit the aisle where they have things like that and use 50% or 40% off coupons. Good thing I can because they like to get lost.

__________________~ GG
Happiness is catching that dropped stitch while it's still fixable..